A "LIGHTER" NOTE? MAYBE!

POLLY'S COOKIES...and "K"....

I spoke at the AA "cookie" meeting last night for about 20 minutes here in Naples, FL...and the cookies were DELICIOUS. Anyway, I lent the folks a bit of my wit, wisdom, and charm -grin- and shared with them a small segment from my great storehouse of knowledge of AA recovery -another HUGE grin-. But this I can truly say...that I had a wonderful time of it, especially munching the cookies. And everyone else was smiling also, at cookie-time...(saying, "Thank God the long-winded 20-minute talking had reached those final words!").

And the "cookie girl" of the night (An anonymous sweetheart named Polly!) gave me a little doggie bag, for home use. Which brings me to the SECOND part of this blog. At home was my sober (23 years) wife, Anna speaking in low toned voice (unusual for her!) to a girl who God had dropped into our laps--well, our HOUSE--for a one-nighter. I'll call her "K" for now. She is from a northern city, age seventeen, passing through Naples, an admitted "person with a drinking problem" and a real darling, intelligent girl with a magnetic personality. And she is a drunk! Also neither Anna nor I had ever met her before. How she arrived at our door, clean and pretty, with bag in hand, is a mystery only God knows whereof. I mean, well, we know a few specifics, but the enigma was for certain a working of God, IMO.

And so, as you all have guessed by now...we enjoyed non-stop, wonderful conversations of learning about each other until the wee hours--eating Polly's (Ummmm!) cookies, with an amount of ice cream thrown into the mix. "K" agreed to my early-hour-up schedule, and so Anna brought her to my 7AM meeting.

As you've also guessed by now, she was surrounded by a gaggle of girls (I had alerted some of them beforehand and at the 6AM meeting!) and we are fairly sure that she enjoyed her FIRST AA meeting. "K" smiled often as only the newcomer--and the old-timer--can do (hiding all the BS which is lurking behind the facade) and I noticed her attentiveness and "saw" her listening to each one who shared on this, our "Step-Day" (Third Step! How wonderful is THAT?). It has GOT to be impressive to a first-day someone, who gets a little silver chip, for first-week, etc., and then witnesses sixty-five people at 7AM on a Friday morning, laughing at themselves one moment, talking the next moment about our life-and-death disease, and in general having a GRAND OLD TIME...but serious, but serious...!

Well that's ALL of us, whether at a meeting, in a living room, in a gutter on the street, or on a huge luxury ocean liner--for a week--with a few hundred AA's, having a ball! "K" found understanding, love, and PEACE in that room this morning, and as I write this about our experiences the past twenty-four hours, it's all I can do...to not cry with happiness. I love you ALL.

Steve E.